We all know that a big issue relates to the proposed subsidization of individual health insurance plans in the exchange, some of which might cover abortion. The debate resolves around how best to minimize the proximity of taxpayer funds to every occasion of abortion, with the proviso that the procedure will remain legal. It’s tricky. But when we get deeper into this issue, we can go far further than abortion (there is a curious tendency among some to begin and end every discussion of morality with abortion).
I’m talking here about the single largest item in the federal budget – defense and military spending. Even if you accept the premise that funding a military in itself is not immoral, you cannot get past the fact that you are most certainly funding activities that are indeed immoral. The Iraq war was immoral. The continued accumulation of nuclear weapons is immoral. Torture is intrinsically evil – and yet the taxpayer under the Bush administration at least was paying for the various CIA programs that tortured people. Where were the calls of conscientious Catholics to de-fund these activities at that time? And what about the $3 billion a year flowing from the American taxpayer to the Israeli military, as it commits war crimes in Gaza?
Yes, the funding of the abortion merely begins the debate, doesn’t it? And for that matter, let’s talk about conscience protections too. The church also supports selective conscientious objection in the military. How come we don’t hear about this so much?
I suppose the good news is that the party of nihilism actually came up with an alternative healthcare plan. But that’s it for the good news. It’s all down here from there. The CBO has scored the GOP proposal, and the results are not good. See Jon Cohn and Ezra Klein for the gory details. In a nutshell, the plan would not deal with the problem of the uninsured at all – ten years into implementation, 52 million people would be uninsured.
OK, but it saves money by insuring fewer people, right? Wrong. The Republican plan will reduce the deficit by $68 billion over the next ten years. The Democratic plan will cut the deficit by $104 billion over this period. So, let’s sum up – the Democratic bill covers 12 times as many people and saves $36 billion extra!
Republicans are trumpeting that premiums are lower, and that’s true – but it’s barely significant for the vast majority on employer-based insurance (0-3 percent reduction for insurance through large employers). There is no comparison to make here, as the CBO’s estimates of the impact on premiums of the Democratic plan are not done yet. But I can probably guess the direction! Another point worth noting – one of the reasons premiums fall in the Republican plan is because there will be less medical care provided, not because the cost of provision is lower. Oh, I almost forgot – Republicans would still let insurance companies penalize people (refuse or drop coverage, charge exorbitant premiums) for pre-existing conditions.
Perhaps I absolved them of the charge of nihilism too soon…
This is a tricky topic, and I’ve seen so many confusing and misleading statements on it. Much of it comes from not thinking carefully enough about how health insurance works. Let me try to describe the coverage of abortion in five hypothetical systems, all mirroring real world examples. Let us assume that the legal status of abortion is the same in each country. And let us assume that all countries have universal coverage.
Fr. Robert Imbelli provides this gem from the man formerly known as Joseph Ratzinger:
“The Body of Christ” means that all human beings are one organism, the destiny of the whole the proper destiny of each. True enough, the decisive outcome of each person’s life is settled in death, at the close of their earthly activity. Thus everyone is judged and reaches his or her definitive destiny after death. But their final place in the whole can be determined only when the total organism is complete, when the passio and actio of history have come to their end. And so the gathering together of the whole will be an act that leaves no person unaffected. Only at that juncture can the definitive general judgment take place, judging each one in terms of the whole and giving him or her that just place which they can receive only in conjunction with all the rest.
I didn’t talk much about it at the time, but the Goldstone report issued a damning indictment of Israel’s behavior during the most recent Gaza war. As noted at the time by Catholic priests on the ground, Israel’s actions amounted to war crimes. Its policy of blockade amount to collective punishment and “a systematic policy of progressive isolation and deprivation”. During the war itself, “the Israeli military operation was directed at the people of Gaza as a whole, in furtherance of an overall and continuing policy aimed at punishing the Gaza population, and in a deliberate policy of disproportionate force aimed at the civilian population”. There was also a deliberate policy of denying Palestinians “means of subsistence, employment, housing and water”.
His latest stunt is to call for the burning of effigies of Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi on Halloween. He claims this is in the great American tradition. That’s good, because it goes completely against the Christian tradition. Besides, being a Catholic for only five minutes, he clearly would not understand the profound anti-Catholic undertones of burning effigies around this date. Honestly, is Terry really trying to push more and more people into the pro-choice column? It would seem so. And it makes a certain amount of sense – his political grandstanding depends on it. Terry and NARAL need each other in the same way as Bush and Bin Laden needed each other.
Let’s jump back into the health-care debate. Let’s talk about costs. If you tell people that healthcare spending is out of control, they will probably think about what they can see visibly — which is spending on the government’s books, such as medicare and medicaid. You can see the spending and you can see the cost – either in taxes today or taxes tomorrow (debt). But, as I’ve pointed out before, this is not the main source of healthcare spending. Spending on private sector healthcare is rising at a faster clip than public healthcare spending, and has been for some time (7.3 percent versus 4.6 percent for the average annual increase in premiums over the past decade or so). Let’s go back further — if insurance premiums had risen “only” as much as medicare spending since 1970, they would be a third lower today.
Courtesy of Fr. James Martin, I came across Sarah Silverman’s anti-Catholic rant in which she tells the pope to end world hunger by selling the Vatican – and promising him that, among other things, the involvement with the Holocaust would be forgotten. Regular readers will be aware that I’m not exactly Bill Donohue’s biggest fan, but it is at times like this that I want to be become the next Bill Donohue. For the point is basically correct – it is perfectly acceptable to attack Catholicism in a way that is not the case with other religions.
The point of this post, though, is not to point out how dumb Silverman’s argument is – as Fr. Martin points out, the pope cannot sell the Vatican, as it belongs to the Church, not to him. And that the Catholic Church is the single biggest provider of health care and social services in the world. No, the point of this post is to point out the hypocrisy of Silverman’s smugness. Silverman is Jewish. Perhaps she needs to look a little closer here. Perhaps she needs to ask why a group of her co-religionists feel that they have a unique right to their own secular state, and to deny human rights to (and commit war crimes against) the non-Jewish inhabitants of that territory. Look to your own backyard first, Sarah, before pointing out the moral flaws of the Catholic Church.
It’s well known that Bobby Kennedy was quite devout. I would also say that his Catholicism inspired his politics more so than any other American Catholic public figure in recent memory. But did you know that a very young Bobby was the one who first raised the red flag about Fr. Leonard Feeney, subsequently excommunicated? Apparently, Bobby was one of the young men drawn to Feeney’s Boston circle, and went to hear him speak regularly. But Feeney’s approach to salvation troubled him, and he asked his father if it was true that all non-Catholics were automatically damned. Joseph P. Kennedy said he must have misunderstood, that the priest could not have meant this, and if he was really worried he would put in a call to “Richard” and ask him to talk to his son. Richard, of course, was Richard Cardinal Cushing, friend of the Kennedy family. Bobby was indeed worried, and did go to see Cardinal Cushing. Upon hearing what Bobby reported, Cushing immediately sent some people to Feeney’s talk. Upon verifying what Bobby had told him, he banned Feeney from speaking, the first step towards his excommunication.
I think this is a cute story. It has no point really, and it may well be highly exaggerated, but it is a nice story. The source is Teddy Kennedy’s autobiography.
From “the Anchoress“, who I believe pretends to be a Catholic blogger:
“All indications are that the torture was very limited in scope and that -whether we are comfortable with it or not- information gleaned through waterboarding saved lives.”
Who cares about doing something intrinsically evil if it is not that evil, and if good might come of it? Consequentialism overcomes First Things. Surprised?
Courtesy of Rocco, some very provocative statements from Memphis bishop Terry Steib:
“I … know there is a subtle racism that still exists within our Church that leads to a mistrust of the Church among our young African American men and women. (snip)
Every new global warming study seems to paint a worse picture, with yesterday’s downside scenario as today’s baseline. Now it seems we might have passed the tipping point:
“Climate researchers now predict the planet will warm by 6.3 degrees Fahrenheit by the end of the century even if the world’s leaders fulfill their most ambitious climate pledges, a much faster and broader scale of change than forecast just two years ago, according to a report released Thursday by the United Nations Environment Program.
…The increase is nearly double what scientists and world policymakers have identified as the upper limit of warming the world can afford in order to avert catastrophic climate change.”
Remember, it is the low-income countries that will suffer most, from famine, from rising sea levels. Keep that in mind as the American right continues to insist on its God-given right to consume what it wishes, to drive what it wishes, evening opposing the most miniscule attempts at capping emissions. This is one of the gravest moral issues of our time.
With the demise of Sarah Palin’s “death panels”, the opposition refuses to let go of the euthanasia canard. This time, the line is that the proposed Medicare cuts will lead to rationed care among those who need it most, and the elderly will be left to die. As the (so-called) National Right to Life Committee put it, the cost-saving measures in the Baucus bill will “gravely endanger the lives of America’s senior citizens”. Sadly, Archbishop Burke– clearly irked that many of his fellow Vatican officials are (understandably) favorable to healthcare reform – has jumped on the bandwagon, declaring that it is “not acceptable” for any kind of healthcare reform to withdraw treatment from the elderly or those in need.
The Iranian peaceful protests against the regime live on. Have a look at the clip below – while the government buses prompt the crowds to chant “Down with the USA”, they instead shout back “Down with Russia”. And Ahmadinejad’s famous “Death to Israel” not getting the reaction it used to.
Let’s think about this. Can you imagine this happening under the Bush-Cheney presidency? Can you imagine this happening under a McCain presidency? I find it highly ironic that the usual “hawks” express their undying support to the Iranian opposition out of one side of their mouth, and endorse Netanyahu’s wild aggression out of the other side. And make no mistake, no Republican president would ever have opposed Netanyahu. Just something to remember. And Sarah Palin would have been praying for the end times…
In what is bound to make George Weigel paranoid, Cardinal Renato Martino — head of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace — has expressed his thoughts on the US healthcare debate:
“The health of their own citizens belongs to the authorities, to the central government. And so I have been 16 years in the States and I was wondering why a big portion of the American people is deprived, have no health assistance at all. I could never explain this…
And you know that everywhere in the world it is a concern of the government first of all, and after there are possibilities also on the private sector, but those who are without anything… the central government must provide to that. So I cannot but applaud this initiative.”
Now, more than ever, we are seeing the problems with the proposed solution of the American Catholic right – align with right-wing evangelicals and support the Republican party so that they can select certain judges to overturn Roe v. Wade. The problem is, like Icarus, you might fly too close to the sun and come crashing down. Here, the sun is that package of Republicans beliefs and attitudes that have no place in Catholic social teaching. So we have some Catholics defending war, torture, and an aggressive and unChristian neoconservative posture in the world. We have more Catholics embracing all aspects of the theology of individualism, relishing in subsidiarity without solidarity, pushing to purge the government from all aspects of the economy, defending materialism and consumerism, and nodding toward a preferential policy toward the rich. As long as you don yourself in the prolife shroud, everything else is permissable. More damagingly, as the Republican party disintegrates into an angry nihilistic faction, so too does Catholic discourse deteriorate. And so in the eyes of the general public, the pro-life is seen as part and parcel of a bitter and angry cultural movement that mocks social justice concerns and opposes attempts to bring healthcare for all. These people are harming the pro-life cause more than any “pro-choice” politician.
When I defended Obama last year, and argued that he was by far the better candidate, I annoyed a lot of people. But nothing provoked such ire as my suggestion that many of those who opposed Obama were motivated more by race than by abortion. And now, a year later, I think we need to come back to this point. For when I see the sheer lunacy of the right, especially when they protest, it seems that – deep down- they simply cannot abide a back president. Oh sure, there was the anti-Clinton nonsense, but it never reached this level of derangement.
Although you see the occasional pro-life message in the mix, this reaction has nothing to do with abortion. It has everything to do with Obama as the alien, as the man who should not be president, who is destroying the country with his anti-American policies. He’s a nazi, a communist, a terrorist, a socialist. He is trying to destroy the traditional American way of life. He is attacking freedom and freedom must be defended, with violence if necessary. If this sounds all too familiar, it is. These are the same attacks leveled against the civil rights movement a few decades ago.
“On every major measurement, the Census Bureau report shows that the country lost ground during Bush’s two terms. While Bush was in office, the median household income declined, poverty increased, childhood poverty increased even more, and the number of Americans without health insurance spiked. By contrast, the country’s condition improved on each of those measures during Bill Clinton’s two terms, often substantially.”
I see how people on another Catholic blog are wondering why Vox Nova is treating this murder as a “non-event”. I won’t address the implicit assumption that somehow Vox Nova is a giant “borg” collective, with a nefarious strategy designed to annoy and befuddle “true” pro-lifers everywhere! I won’t address the point that the extremist tactics undertaken by so many in the political pro-life movement — and lauded on the right-wing Catholic blogs – seem to be pleasing a smaller and angrier choir, aligning the movement ever more closer to a political philosophy that stands sharply against the core tenets of Catholic social teaching, and turning off the kinds of people we absolutely must persuade if anything is to be done on the abortion front. Others here have addressed that quitewell.
No, I want to talk about something quite simple. Murder is murder. The murder of a human being is an affront to the Creator, a most evil and wicked act, that can never be justified, whether we are talking about an abortion doctor or an abortion protestor. But if we really want to stop the murders, to stop the crazy extremists on both sides resorting to murder, the answer is simple – we need forceful gun control. We need to take the weapons out of the hands of those people who would – whether with malice or in passion – use them to kill people they disagree with. I’ve blogged about this ad nauseam. I’ve talked about how the US homicide rate is far higher than comparator countries and how that can be traced to the widespread availability and ownership of guns, particularly handguns. So if we want to get serious, I urge all Catholics to push for rigorous gun control. Let us all support the USCCB on this matter, which has been making this argument since the 1970s, calling for an eventual ban on handguns. Let’s put aside the individualist ideology and constitution worship for a change, and help save lives. And stop dodging the real issue. Gun control now.
“Christian Democracy avoided class-based appeals and emphasized instead social and moral reforms. In particular, it insisted on the importance of the family, a properly Christian theme with significant policy implications at a time when the needs of single-parent, homeless, and destitute families had never been greater. Thus Christian Democratic parties were ideally placed to capitalize on virtually every aspect of the post-war condition: the desire for stability and security, the expectation of renewal, the absence of traditional right-wing alternatives and the expectations vested in the state – for in contrast to conventional Catholic politicians of an earlier generation, the leaders of Christian Democratic parties and their more radical younger followers had no inhibitions about enrolling the power of the state in pursuing their goals. If anything, Christian Democrats of the first post-war years saw free market liberals rather than the collectivist Left as their main opponents and were keen to demonstrate that the modern state could be adapted to non-socialist forms of benevolent intervention”
Yes, this title is intended to provoke, but no, it is not about the kinds of zealots who kill abortion providers. I want to muse a little about a deeper problem, one I have been thinking about recently. The reason why abortion is such a heinous crime in the eyes of God is that is an act of violence (murder) against an innocent human being. As Catholics, we are supposed to detest violence, to consistently reject violence. We can accept war and the death penalty as absolute last resorts, but even here, we only accept with the heaviest of hearts, and we never claim that they are in any way “good” options.
But many of the loudest pro-lifers do not have this attitude. Indeed, when it comes to the Americans who rally under the banner of “conservatism” (a false and misleading banner), there are a number of fault lines in the ideology that seem to work directly against the Christian’s approach to violence.
“How important it is, therefore, that the international community and the different governments be able to give the appropriate indications to their own citizens to address in an effective manner the ways of utilizing the environment that turn out to be harmful. The economic and social costs stemming from the use of shared environmental resources, recognized in a transparent way, must be assumed by those who use them, and not by other populations or by future generations. Protection of the environment and the safeguarding of the resources and climate call for all leaders to act jointly, respecting the law and promoting solidarity, above all in the weaker regions of the earth (Cf. “Caritas in Veritate,” 50).”
That would mean the rich countries, especially the USA, which consumes far more than its fair share of the world’s resources.
I honestly can’t believe this post is needed (can you imagine “definitive refutation of why 9/11 was not an inside job’?), but since the media insist on handing the loudest megaphone to the craziest people, this is sadly the way the debate is being framed. People are suffering greatly for lack of adequate healthcare, and we get this idiocy. Anyway, Sherwin Nuland of Yale has written an informative post in the New Republic that completely debunks the euthanasia canard. Bottom line: “There is not a single statement in the voluminous number of pages under study that contains the slightest consideration, no matter its remoteness, of death panels, euthanasia, or any such fearsome concept.”
“The truth is, he had expressed to his family that he did want to go. He did want to go to heaven. He did want to die… I think the whole world knows certain parts very well, but I think there’s another part of his life that very few people know, and that’s his deep faith. His very deep faith in God and his love for his family. He was…very reverent. I wish the world had known that part of him, but that was his secret. It was like it was the secret of his power, to be involved in doing good for others and it was what, I believe, drove him”.
“Wouldn’t it have been nice to see something more of that in public? I am glad he revealed it in more private settings. But faith wasn’t be merely private.”
“(But) take care not to perform righteous deeds in order that people may see them; otherwise, you will have no recompense from your heavenly Father. When you give alms, do not blow a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets to win the praise of others. Amen, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you give alms, do not let your left hand know what your right is doing, so that your almsgiving may be secret. And your Father who sees in secret will repay you. When you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, who love to stand and pray in the synagogues and on street corners so that others may see them. Amen, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you pray, go to your inner room, close the door, and pray to your Father in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will repay you.”
I was very sad to hear of Ted Kennedy’s death this morning. By no means perfect, Kennedy was a man born into a world of wealth and privilege, and yet who devoted his whole life to public service, becoming a leading advocate of the poor and the downtrodden, a clarion call for economic and social justice even during the darkest days of the Reagan years. The saddest part is that he died before he could see his dream of universal healthcare come to fruition. May his soul and the souls of all the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace. And may his dream of social justice never die.
As a Catholic, this just seemed so obvious to me when I wrote it. I am therefore most gratified to know that I am in line with the thinking of the archbishop of Glasgow, Mario Conti, on this matter. Archbishop Conti said:
“I personally, and many others in the Catholic community, admired the decision to release Abdelbaset al-Megrahi on grounds of compassion which is, after all, one of the principles inscribed on the mace of the Scottish Parliament by which Scotland’s Government should operate. The showing of mercy in any situation is not a sign of weakness. Indeed in this situation, with the pressures and circumstances of the case, it seemed to me a sign of manifest strength.”
Amen. And by the way, who can deny that the almost universal American outrage over this release comes from its Calvinist culture? Indeed, there are Catholic bloggers out whose reaction is “screw the complicit appeasement-happy Europeans” (and no, I am not linking to this person). Kneejerk Americanism first, Catholicism second, and with a whiff of violence in the rhetoric. Rather standard fare among that crowd, I’m afraid.
Just when you thought you had all the information on the worst administration in US history, you find that the well of depravity is seemingly endless. Consider the latest torture revelations:
“The highlights include: (1) mock executions; (2) threatened rape of family members; (3) threatened murder of children; (4) kicking and beating a detainee with a metal flashlight to death; (5) threatening naked hooded detainees with power drills; (6) blowing cigar smoke in detainees’ faces until they got sick; (7) waterboarding with massive volumes of water far beyond what OLC authorized (to make it “poignant”); (8) stress positions that nearly caused shoulder dislocations; (9) scraping detainees with stiff brushes; (10) choking a detainee with one’s bare hands until they nearly pass out; (11) subjecting detainees to extremely cold temperatures and water dousing; (12) “hard takedowns” (sometimes in diapers); and (13) beating detainees with butts of rifles (followed by kicking them).”
These are clearly despicable, intrinsically evil, acts, perpetrated by the agents of the US government. Where are the critics of “big government” and “statism” when you need them?
Oh sure, the Bush-Cheney administration did not explicitly approve these activities. But what does it serve us to devise neat lists of “good torture” and “bad torture”? It’s all torture, one way or the other, it’s all evil. And when you open the floodgates of hell, you should not be surprised by what comes out.
In country 1, people are covered by a single-payer system system. All pay a dedicated contribution that, for most, is deducted from their pay packet. The single insurer is a public entity. It allows for legal directly-procured abortions permitted under the law to be covered.
In country 2, people are covered by three large private health insurers. All pay a premium that, for most, is deducted from their pay packet. There is no government involvement in health insurance. All three private insurers cover directly-procured abortions as permitted under the law.
The question: is the provision of health insurance for directly-procured abortion more morally grave in country 1 than country 2? If so, why?
I was in Ireland recently. When I arrived, I watched a prime time current affairs debate on Irish television. It turned out to be about the proposal to set up a “bad bank” in Ireland. The discussion as incredibly sophisticated. The guests included professors of finance and economics, and issues debated included the merits of mark-to-market accounting and the best way to maximize taxpayer upside. And then I returned to the United States, where the topic was, of course, health care. The difference could not have been more stark. Instead of a sober fact-based discussion among experts, we are treated to wild allegations and meaningless slogans (liberals! socialists! big government!). Why is the state of pubic debate so depressing in this country?
The American media is giving intense coverage to the decision of the Scottish government to release the Lockerbie terrorist bomber, Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi, on compassionate grounds. I was watching CNN in a waiting room this morning. The man sitting next to me declared that somebody should train a “scope” on him. Although I am not familiar with the lingo of firearms, it was clear that this person was calling for the man to be assassinated. He looked around the room, at us, for approval. He received none. He said no more. But as I looked at him, I could recognize the macho swagger immediately. I was disgusted at seeing this face to face. It brought home everything that is wrong with America in this regard — the belief in punishment detached from mercy, the belief in the virtue of violence, the belief in toughness at all costs. And pretty much everybody on CNN would opposed this decision, from Obama on down. No nuance, and no compassion. Read the rest of this entry »
This is it, folks. It’s not that hard to understand. The public option is a minor element, and will affect very few. It’s whole point is to contain costs, both directly and indirectly through competition with private insurers.
Let’s repeat, once again, what the current healthcare reform proposal is actually trying to do. Despite all the (deliberate) obfuscation, it’s really quite simple. Paul Krugman says it best:
“The essence is really quite simple: regulation of insurers, so that they can’t cherry-pick only the healthy, and subsidies, so that all Americans can afford insurance. Everything else is about making that core work. Individual mandates are a way to prevent gaming of the system by people who don’t sign up until they’re sick; employer mandates a way to hold down the on-budget costs by preventing a rush by employers to drop insurance; the public option a way to create effective competition and hold costs down further. But what it means for the individual will be that insurers can’t reject you, and if your income is relatively low, the government will help pay your premiums. That’s it. Any commentator who whines that he just doesn’t understand it is basically saying that he doesn’t want to understand it.”
Anybody who reads this blog know what I think of the tactics of the latter-day American right — the quasi-Leninist tactic of throwing rhetorical bombs into crowded rooms so that the ensuing chaos and confusion will muddle the issue at hand, and, in doing so, could well derail any attempt to implement the kinds of policies that might support the common good but go against Republican liberal orthodoxy. It’s the “total war” politics of destruction, and truth is the first casualty. Indeed, truth is malleable and relative. How modern! (And yet they think they are conservative!) And no more is this the case than with the healthcare debate. As I’ve noted before, what is in fact a rather modest and incremental proposed change has been transmogrified into “socialism” and specters of the government drawing up lists of people to be killed. I find it very sad that Catholic bloggers and others in the public square are jumping on this bandwagon, crying socialism, making up stories of euthanasia, and treating the insurance coverage of abortion as the only worthwhile topic of discussion.
It’s been a pet peeve of my mine for quite some time now that the pseudo-conservative movement in this country has embraced, with relish, a rhetorical style that is almost Leninist in character. The aim, pure and simple, is to destroy the opposition. At the far end of the scale, you find the bizarre rumors and conspiracy theories that pass for everyday discourse. Witness the lunacy of the debate over Obama’s birth certificate. Some claim racism, noting that this ever-dwindling echo chamber – with a base in the old confederacy – simply cannot accept a black president and will do whatever they can to paint him as a usurper. This may well part part of it, but it cannot be the main reason. Why? Because I’ve seen this all before, during the presidency of Bill Clinton. Wasn’t he supposed to have murdered Vince Foster? Didn’t he run drugs from Latin America into Arkansas? Didn’t be assassinate a stream of political enemies? As they would say in Battlestar Galactica, this has all happened before, this will all happen again. Now, I’m sure many will immediately think: a-ha, but the left does the same thing. And sure, if you comb the blogs you will find some nasty stuff out there. But it’s not the same. The conspiratorial approach to politics is far closer to the center of power on the right than on the left. Not only do you have the whole noise machine in the media (essentially radio and TV, less so blogs), but you have Republican members of Congress engaging in this kind of apocalyptic rhetoric. Remember, the crazy attacks on Clinton culminated in a frenzied impeachment.
This is a style of politics that elevates the will over the intellect, and sees facts as malleable. It is warped and cynical version of post-modernism. Ultimately, it is relativism. Let’s talk healthcare.
You hear some talk about the opponents of health care reform forcing members of Congress to abide by it. Clearly, those who make the claim do not understand the basics of the reform — the health exchanges would be barred to those under large company insurance schemes, at least for a few years. Indeed, the worst outcomes of the reform would be no change for most people, especially those receiving insurance through employers, as not enough is being done to curb the power of the insurance companies in these schemes.
But what about the gun nuts in Congress? Just recently, these same gun nuts tried to force through a measure that would allow gun owners to carry weapons into other jurisdictions without heed for tighter regulations relating to carrying weapons in those jurisdictions. Thank God this piece of anti-life lunacy was defeated. But now EJ Dionne has a great proposal — let the gun nuts in Congress put their money where their mouth is. He asks:
“Isn’t it time to dismantle the metal detectors, send the guards at the doors away and allow Americans to exercise their Second Amendment rights by being free to carry their firearms into the nation’s Capitol?
I’ve been studying the deep thoughts of senators who regularly express their undying loyalty to the National Rifle Association, and I have decided that they should practice what they preach. They tell us that the best defense against crime is an armed citizenry and that laws restricting guns do nothing to stop violence.
If they believe that, why don’t they live by it?
Why would freedom-loving lawmakers want to hide behind guards and metal detectors? Shouldn’t NRA members be outraged that Second Amendment rights mean nothing in the very seat of our democracy?
Congress seems to think that gun restrictions are for wimps. It voted this year to allow people to bring their weapons into national parks, and pro-gun legislators have pushed for the right to carry in taverns, colleges and workplaces. Shouldn’t Congress set an example in its own workplace?”
EJ Dionne reported a few weeks back that some US bishops had received a rap on the knuckles from the nuncio, Archbishop Pietro Sambi. He told them in blunt terms that their “harsh attacks on Obama threaten to make the church look partisan”. This did not surprise me one bit, following the increaseddisconnectbetweenthe Vaticanand the US episcopate, some of whom in recent days seemed to have inexplicably handed over the steering wheel to an extreme fringe. Still, I was not sure if Dionne’s claim was true – this would be a very significant intervention for a nuncio. I recently asked a very well-placed source, and one not at all favorable to Obama, about this claim. He told he that it was completely true. So there you have it.
Subsidiarity implies that responsibility for activities should take place at the lowest possible level, and higher levels should not usurp the responsibilities of lower levels. How do we apply this to healthcare? Many argue that any form of government involvement is an automatic violation of subsidiarity, but I think this misunderstands the issue. I would argue that, with an insurance-based system of providing healthcare, the appropriate level is the broad level.
You are currently browsing the archives for the Morning's Minion category.
Vox Nova
"In their patriotism and in their fidelity to their civic duties Catholics will feel themselves bound to promote the true common good; they will make the weight of their convictions so influential that as a result civil authority will be justly exercised and laws will accord with moral precepts and the common good."
Second Vatican Council, Apostolicam actuositatem 14
Posted by Morning's Minion 
Posted by Morning's Minion 
Posted by Morning's Minion 
This is it, folks. It’s not that hard to understand. The public option is a minor element, and will affect very few. It’s whole point is to contain costs, both directly and indirectly through competition with private insurers. 
